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Ruth stands on the threshold of the history of David, yet, as regards its spirit, it stands,
like the Psalms, at the threshold of the Gospel. Not merely on account of the genealogy
of Christ, which leads up to David and Boaz, but on account of the spirit which the
teaching of David breathes, do we love to remember that Israel's great king sprang from
the union of Boaz and Ruth, which is symbolical of that between Israel and the Gentile
world.
Everything about this story is of deepest interest - the famine in Bethlehem, "the house
of bread," evidently caused, as afterwards its removal, by the visitation of God (Ruth
1:6); the hints about the family of Elimelech; even their names: Elimelech, "my God is
king;" his wife, Naomi, "the pleasant," and their sons Mahlon (or rather Machlon) and
Chilion (rendered by some "the weak," "the faint;" by others "the jubilant," "the
crowned").^325
The family is described as "Ephrathites of Bethlehem-judah." The expression is
apparently intended to convey, that the family had not been later immigrants, but
original Jewish settlers - or, as the Jewish commentator have it, patrician burghers of the
ancient Ephrath, or "fruitfulness" (Genesis 35:19; 48:7; comp. 1 Samuel 17:12; Micah
5:2). At one time the family seems to have been neither poor nor of inconsiderable
standing (Ruth 1:19-21; 2; 3). But now, owing to "the famine," Ephrath was no longer
"fruitfulness," nor yet Bethlehem "the house of bread;" and Elimelech, unable, on
account of the troubles in the west, to go for relief either into Philistia or into Egypt,
migrated beyond Jordan, and the reach of Israel's then enemies, to "sojourn" in Moab.
There is no need to attempt excuses for this separation from his brethren and their fate
on the part of Elimelech, nor for his seeking rest among those hereditary enemies of
Israel, outside Palestine, on whom a special curse seems laid (Deuteronomy 23:6). We
have only to mark the progress of this story to read in it the judgment of God on this
step. Of what befell the family in Moab, we know next to nothing. But this we are
emphatically told, that Elimelech died a stranger in the strange land. Presently Machlon
and Chilion married Moabite wives -Machlon, Ruth (Ruth 4:10); Chilion, Orpah.^326
So other ten years passed. Then the two young men died, each childless, and Naomi was
left desolate indeed. Thus, as one has remarked: "The father had feared not to be able to
live at home. But scarcely had he arrived in the strange land when he died. Next, the
sons sought to found a house in Moab; but their house became their grave. Probably,
they had wished not to return to Judah, at least till the famine had ceased - and when it
had ceased, they were no more. The father had gone away to have more, and to provide
for his family - and his widow was now left without either children or possession!"
Similarly, we do not feel it needful to attempt vindicating the marriage of these two
Hebrew youths with Moabite wives. For there really was no express command against
such unions. The instances in Scripture (Judges 3:6; 1 Kings 11:1; Nehemiah 13:23),
(^)